Quality Engineer

Optum is a global organization that delivers care, aided by technology to help millions of people live healthier lives. The Quality Engineer role involves owning end-to-end test strategy, defining quality gates, and leading test automation efforts to ensure high-quality software delivery.

Responsibilities:

• Own end-to-end test strategy across UI, API, services, data, and AI-enabled features
• Define quality gates (entry/exit criteria) and drive risk-based test planning for complex, multi-service releases
• Lead shift-left practices by partnering early with product/engineering to embed testability into architecture and design
• Design, build, and maintain automated test suites (unit, integration, API, UI, contract, regression) integrated into CI/CD pipelines
• Create and manage test data, environments, mocks/stubs, and service virtualization to enable reliable testing
• Execute exploratory testing on high-risk areas and validate non-functional requirements (performance, security, reliability, accessibility)
• Monitor and improve quality metrics (defect leakage, coverage, flakiness, escape rates) and drive continuous improvement actions
• Triage defects, perform root-cause analysis with engineering, and verify fixes through regression and targeted automation
• Ensure release readiness by coordinating test execution, validating cross-service integrations, and reporting quality status to stakeholders
• Champion best practices for coding standards, testability, observability, and 'quality ownership' across the team

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience
• 3+ years (or appropriate level) of experience in Quality Engineering, SDET, or software testing for web applications and APIs
• Strong understanding of SDLC/STLC, defect lifecycle, and test strategy (risk-based testing, shift-left, quality gates)
• Hands-on experience testing UI and APIs (REST/JSON), including integration and end-to-end testing across services
• Experience with test automation using at least one modern language/toolset (e.g., Java, JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, C#) and frameworks (e.g., Playwright/Cypress/Selenium, REST Assured/Postman)
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Azure DevOps) and integrating automated tests into pipelines
• Ability to analyze logs, troubleshoot issues, and partner with engineers on root-cause analysis
• Strong communication skills and ability to document test plans, quality status, and release readiness
• Experience testing microservices and distributed systems (contract testing, service virtualization, event-driven flows)
• Exposure to data validation (SQL, ETL testing, data quality checks) and test data management
• Knowledge of performance testing (e.g., JMeter, k6) and basic security testing concepts (OWASP)
• Cloud and container experience (AWS/Azure/GCP, Docker, Kubernetes)
• Experience with observability tools (Splunk, Datadog, New Relic, Grafana) to support monitoring and testability
• Experience validating AI-enabled features (model behavior checks, prompt/response evaluation, bias/quality metrics, regression testing for LLM changes)
• Domain experience in payments, financial services, or regulated environments